Release Manus report, Greens tell Morrison

IMMIGRATION Minister Scott Morrison is being urged to release an interim report into a fatal riot at the Manus Island detention centre after new footage showing asylum seekers being attacked.

In the brief video, published by Fairfax Media, local guards employed by former centre operator G4S throw chairs and other objects at a building said to house asylum seekers who had earlier escaped the compound.

The footage was taken on the evening of February 16 amid simmering tensions over the processing of asylum claims, and 24 hours before the riot that led to the death of Iranian Reza Berati.

Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has called on the government to release the interim report, compiled by former head of the Attorney-General's department Robert Cornall.

"Local PNG staff violently attacking asylum seekers should have set alarm bells ringing, but instead, violence escalated and a young man was killed," she said in a statement on Tuesday.

The interim report had been sitting on the minister's desk "for weeks" and it was time Mr Morrison released it, she said.

Labor says the final report must be made public without delay.

"We need to get to the bottom of what happened," opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said.

Australians needed to be assured proper safeguards will be put in place to ensure the detention centre is run in a safe manner.

The riot is also the focus of a local Papua New Guinea police investigation and a federal inquiry.

Mr Morrison declined to comment on the footage while both the Cornall review and police investigation were ongoing.